如何通过Android应用程序与外部SQL数据库进行通信？

Question

I have an Android app which writes/reads from an external SQL database through a PHP script. Both the database and the PHP script is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The app sends HTTP request to the PHP script, and the PHP script communicates with the database.

Are there easier ways to connect the app with the database? I feel like this method is kinda hacky. Or is this how it is done? Is it possible to avoid the PHP script entirely and just communicate with the database through Java in the app?

Below is the code for fetching everything in the database.

The php script:

$servername = "";
$username = "";
$password = "";

$conn = mysqli_connect($servername, $username, $password);

if (!$conn) {
    die("Connection failed: " . mysqli_connect_error());
}

$sql = "SELECT * FROM table";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

if($result->num_rows > 0){
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()){
        echo "rowname1: " . $row["rowname1"]. " rowname2: " . $row["rowname2"] . "\n";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}

$conn->close();

The Java code:

requestQueue = Volley.newRequestQueue(this);
    String url = "";
    StringRequest stringRequest = new StringRequest(Request.Method.GET, url, new Response.Listener<String>() {
        @Override
        public void onResponse(String response) {
            textDatabase.setText(response);
        }
    }, new Response.ErrorListener() {
        @Override
        public void onErrorResponse(VolleyError error) {
            textDatabase.setText(error.toString());
        }
    });

    requestQueue.add(stringRequest);

Answer 1

This is the correct way to do that, via API.

Frontend Application (Android, iOS, browser) <-> API <-> Backend

You can connect direct to the database, but you should not. To be able to do that, you have to put user and password in your application. Doing this, how do you prevent users to connect on your database and changing all they want? There are many more points against this approach.

Look for REST APIs , or maybe GraphQL .